Jakarta – Indonesian forestry companies grouped under Masyarakat Perhutanan Indonesia will launch an investigation of an estimated $2.04 billion which former President Suharto's golfing partner Mohamad "Bob" Hasan collected between 1991 and 1997. Bob Hasan served as the chairman of MPI from 1991 until March this year. After he resigned, MPI split up into two groups, namely a group backed by Hasan, and the pro-reform group calling for the ending of forestry business monopolies by Hasan.

The chairman of the renegade faction in the MPI, Agus Miftah, said Monday that on top of the $2.04 billion Hasan collected as commissions, promotion funds, and trading monopolies on plywood products, he also gathered an estimated $8 billion from sawn timber, wood working, pulp and paper products as well as monopolies on aerial photography, and insurance.

Agus said that MPI has set up a team to recover the money, which Hasan allegedly put in bank accounts in Indonesia as well as Singapore and Hong Kong. He stated Hasan deposited some 25 billion rupiah (IDR) ($1=IDR10,975) of MPI funds in Bank Muamalat, which he partly owns. He also deposited MPI funds in his other banks, namely IDR25 billion in Bank Bukopin, and IDR800 billion in the shut down Bank Umum Nasional. Agus said it's not clear if Hasan put the money under his name. "We will summon Bob Hasan in mid October to verify the funds," Agus said. He accused Hasan of using MPI funds to back his offshore loans.

If the team manages to recover the funds, some of them will be paid back to companies under MPI, and the rest will be for the poor to buy basic commodities, he added. He claimed his faction is backed by 1,100 forestry companies out of 1,200 forestry companies under MPI.